Lytherus heads to San Diego Comic Con: Here’s what we’ll be bringing to you… and it’s AWESOME!

Lytherus is headed to San Diego Comic Con, the world’s largest pop culture convention! This is our ninth year in a row attending the show and, like the show’s content, our coverage will be bigger and better than ever!

We’re trying something unique – most outlets cover the news and live blog the panels. That’s boring – stuff you can find all over the internet. Instead, one hugely overlooked and incredibly cool part of San Diego Comic Con is what can be found outside of the convention halls: amazing “off site” experiences, transforming warehouses, buildings and outdoor constructs into amazing, immersive experiences from your favorite movies and shows. This year’s highlights include Game of Thrones: Survive the Realm, Constantine, Assassin’s Creed Unity, a Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel gun course and more!

Here’s a taste of what we’ll be doing and when. Note: we may not be able to get event coverage up on the same day we’re there. However, coverage will be up same-day on our social media accounts! See below for more details.

WEDNESDAY – PREVIEW NIGHT!

Image Expo – We’ll be going behind the scenes of Image Comics at their exclusive Image Expo press event with announcements on their upcoming releases and more!

Assassin’s Creed Experience – The Assassin’s Creed team may have outdone last year’s off-site event: a pirate ship! How? This year they’ve set up a massive Assassin’s Creed-styled parkour course, professionally designed by some of the world’s best parkour experts. The entire course is themed to look straight out of Assassin’s Creed Unity and our crew has VIP access to the off-site. We’ll also be demoing the game shortly after!

Flying TARDIS – Calling all Doctor Who fans: the Doctor may not have his own panel this year but the TARDIS won’t be a no-show! One group is bringing a flying TARDIS to Comic Con and we’ll be on the look-out, reporting back with what we find!

TMNT Pizza Launcher – We never thought we’d see the day… but Pizza Hut has teamed up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to create a massive life-sized, fully functional pizza launcher. Yeah! We’ve been invited to get a look at this pizza-throwing war machine Wednesday night. You can bet we’ll be bringing you pictures and maybe even some video!

THURSDAY – COMIC CON’S OFFICIAL “DAY ONE”!

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Laser Tag: 2k Games has taken over the rooftop of Petco Park, San Diego’s massive baseball stadium, for a Borderlands-themed laser tag battle… to the death! Okay, well maybe not to the death. 2k is holding a massive 25 vs. 25 match for press on Thursday and we’ll be there in the trenches, bringing you photos, reports and more!

Far Cry 4 – Ubisoft has been kind enough to give our crew VIP access to their Far Cry 4 panel. The game’s development team will be on hand to bring attendees behind the scenes in the creation of Far Cry 4, getting an in-depth look at the game, its characters and its environment months before it releases.

Scholastic Party – Thursday night is the night of parties, and authors know how to party! Our book team will be in attendance at Scholastic’s San Diego Comic Con bash (well, okay, it probably won’t be a rager – but it’s always fun!), mingling with publishers and authors alike. We’ll bring you photos and any juicy details!

Random House/Penguin Party – Not to be left out, Random House and Penguin are throwing their own party! Always fun and full of huge fantasy and scifi authors, this party is sure to be good. Our crew will be attending, mingling with authors and publishers and hopefully bringing back some inside information on some highly anticipated Random House and Penguin books!

MTV Fandom Awards and Fan Fest – MTV’s Fan Fest was one of the hottest events at last year’s Comic Con and they’re back bigger and better than ever with the MTV Fandom Awards and Fan Fest! We’ve been invited as press to cover the event, which includes celebrities such as Channing Tatum, Orlando Jones, Dan Harmon, Kellan Lutz, Rob Riggle, and a live performance from Linkin Park. We’ll be covering the Awards and Fan Fest live, so don’t miss out!

FRIDAY – “DAY TWO”!

The Legend of Korra! – The Legend of Korra: Book Three is currently airing on Nickelodeon, which makes this panel even more exciting. Every year Nick brings the creators and voice actors from their hit show to the convention and gives off lots of exclusive news, information and announcements. Last year they showed the premiere episode of Book Two, and while we’ve already seen the premiere of Book Three, who knows what they may reveal about Book Four…

Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 Trailer – Lionsgate just couldn’t stay away – just as we thought they wouldn’t be making an appearance at this year’s convention, they surprise us with the announcement of an exclusive teaser trailer premiere at the Capitol Gallery. Lionsgate has invited our team to come and preview the trailer. We won’t be able to bring back a recording but we’ll do our best to give you a detailed rundown once we can calm down.

Assassin’s Creed Unity – Ubisoft has been good to us! First the VIP tour of the Assassin’s Creed Unity course, then VIP access to the Far Cry 4 panel, and now… VIP access to their big Assassin’s Creed Unity panel! The development team will introduce you to the newest Assassin’s Creed hero, Arno, share more details about the game, make some new announcements, and even debut a Rob Zombie animated short inspired by the series.

Syfy’s Dominion – We’ll be going behind the scenes of Syfy’s hit show Dominion as we interact with and interview the show’s cast in the Dominion press room! Have a question you’re dying to ask the cast? Tweet it to us at @lytherus and @mikemacauley and we’ll be sure to ask it.

Laura Croft and the Temple of Osiris – We’ll be getting a hands-on demo of Square Enix’s upcoming Laura Croft game, Laura Croft and the Temple of Osiris… playing alongside, and interviewing, one of the game’s developers. We’ll be bringing you footage from that demo and interview in addition to demos of several other Square Enix titles, including Nosgoth, Hitman: Sniper, and Hitman GO.

Maze Runner Press Conference – Oh yeah, this is the big one! We’ll be joining the cast, director, and author of the Maze Runner (James Dashner, a friend of Lytherus) for an interview and live press conference following their massive and hugely-anticipated panel at this year’s convention! We’ll be bringing back some exciting stuff, so stay tuned.

Kingsman: The Secret Service, Agent 47, and Let’s Be Cops – All three of these Fox films look like they’ll be huge hits and we couldn’t be more excited to learn more, meet the cast, and attend the films’ press conferences! Like with the Maze Runner, we’ll aim to bring back some exciting materials to share with you!

CraveOnline and TNT present “The Last Ship” party on the USS Midway – It’s hard to say what will be better: a “The Last Ship”-themed bash on the USS Midway, a navy aircraft carrier, featuring a live performance from the band MGMT… or the big MTV bash. We’ll let the two stand on their own! We have VIP access to this mega-event and will be live-tweeting and bringing you whatever materials we can!

SATURDAY – “DAY THREE!”

Legendary Pictures – “Hall H” panels (the biggest panel room in the convention, seating almost 7,000 fans) are always good and this years’ Legendary Pictures panel promises to be great. They haven’t announced exactly what they’ll be showing, but rumor has it that they’ll be debuting a preview of their upcoming Warcraftmovie. Our staff are mega-Warcraft fans, so they’ll be camping overnight on the sidewalk for this one! We’ll bring back whatever materials we can.

Syfy’s Ascension – Set to be another hit Syfy show, Ascension is making its Comic Con debut first with a panel on the show, followed by a press room with the show’s cast and crew. We’ve been invited to the press room to interview the show’s actors and will bring back some great goodies for those of you interested in scifi (or Syfy!) television.

SUNDAY – “THE LAST DAY”

NBC Constantine and Blacklist Experiences – Every year, NBC takes over a huge chunk of the Gaslamp area (directly across from the convention center) to create elaborate and immersive experiences, similar to film sets, for fans to experience the settings and atmosphere from their shows. This year they’re bringing Constantine and The Blacklist, and we’ve got a VIP tour through both to bring you lots of great exclusive content!

Game of Thrones “Survive the Realm” Experience – It’s a day of Experiences! We couldn’t be more excited for this one – the details are scarce as HBO is keeping hush-hush on this one, but we’re betting it’s going to be good! We have VIP tour through the Game of Thrones Experience and we’ll bring you all of the media we can possibly gather.

Adult Swim Fun House and Meatwad Dome – Sounds horrifying, and according to one of our writers, it is. But we signed up for round two of the Fun House and the first year of the Meatwad Dome. It’s Adult Swim, so anything is possible. We’ll share some media with you… if we return.

NO SPECIFIC SCHEDULE

It’s Godzilla! – Godzilla is returning to the convention center, looming over the building along the water, protecting us all from other massive beasts. We’ll visit the monster before we leave, we promise.

Sleepy Hollow Virtual Reality Experience – Sleepy Hollow has teamed up with Oculus Rift to create an immersive experience through the Sleepy Hollow universe. We’ll be demoing the experience and will report back!

Gotham Zip Line – The upcoming Gotham show looks promising ,and so does this off-site setup: fans can take a Gotham-themed zipline from the Hilton Bayfront tower all the way down to the convention center. This reporter won’t be taking a ride, but we’ll bring back some media!

“On the set with VIKINGS” – History’s VIKINGS off-site is set to be a big one and we’re currently working with the team behind the set to get VIP access to the off-site. We’ll bring back any media we can!

COSPLAY! – San Diego Comic Con is famous for its incredible cosplay and we’ll try to bring back as many awesome photos as possible.

AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

Our very own Lauren Zurchin will be meeting up with a bunch of great authors at this year’s convention, interviewing them about their recent and upcoming releases! These authors include:

Daniel Wilson

Natalie Parker

Tessa Gratton

Arwen Elys Dayton

Keep an eye out after the convention for these interviews!

This isn’t all: there will be much, much more… San Diego Comic Con is the biggest pop culture convention in the world and as such, always has tricks up its sleeves. We’ll bring back anything we think you’ll enjoy and then some.

About Author

Mike Macauley is the founder and editor in chief of Lytherus.com. He also founded and runs Shurtugal.com, the official Inheritance Cycle community, and published his book, The Inheritance Almanac, in 2011. Mike can be found on Twitter at @mikemacauley.

Dear Lytherus visitors: Our seven year journey as a fantasy and science fiction blog has come to a (hopefully temporary) end. As of September, we're entering an indefinite hiatus and are moving our operations over to Shurtugal.com, our sister site. There you'll be able to find familiar voices writing book reviews and reporting on the latest fandom news. We're not closing the door on Lytherus for good, as it's a project many of us would like to revisit in the future. For now, we encourage you to head over to Shurtugal.com to continue the adventure. Thanks for a wonderful seven years, and we hope to see you again soon!